New public sector union formed
Anewly- formed public sector union, Botswana Bright Future Public Workers Union, has vowed to change the public employees’ representation in the country.
The union which has already started recruitment within the public service, is targeting 10 000 members by end of this year.
Interim Secretary General Otsile Mbise says the union will soon be launched for the public servants and other stakeholders to appreciate what it brings to the table which is different from the existing trade unions.
The union intends to modernise union policies to align them with the current developments and trends. They want to change the perception of stagnancy among unions, which has made workers to lose hope in trade unions.
“As Bright Future, we want to seriously take into consideration the welfare of our workers. We want to see workers having improvement in their welfare. Most members are in the existing unions for insurances, purchasing power, discounts in various establishments. “Our focus will be human capital development. We will be engaging various institutions of learning where our members will enrol so that they can upskill themselves. This will also help them to be competitive when it comes to promotions and recognition in the work place,” Mbise stated.
At present, trade union leaders are found wanting because they focus on themselves and not the members, Mbise stated.. This has frustrated many people who are now not active in labour activism.
“We will robustly engage government workers in Scale A- B who are the most disgruntled. There is no motivation and encouragement for this group of workers,” Mbise said.
He added that the focus will be to push for them to get opportunities to further their studies so that they also stand better chances of progression. “We mostly have semi- skilled workers in this bracket. We will be negotiating tuition fees with institutions of learning for our members to pursue further studies there.
“We cannot have someone be employed as a cleaner and retire after 25 years still a cleaner. Our quest also is to lobby government on promotion. We want promotions to be across government departments.
“A person should be able to be promoted from one department to the other in a different ministry depending on their qualifications and abilities,” Mbise said.
Mbise contends that their union is for public servants by public servants. He said it is high time public workers have a feeling of belonging in their trade unions and not relegated to bystanders.
He said the frustrations experienced by public servants have resulted in them having dual membership. They believe the concept they bring to the public service, will help to arrest the situation of dual membership. However they will not accept people who belong to other unions or already have dual membership, but will ensure public workers will not find the need for dual membership.